Ray Charles | The Genius Hits The Road (Coming Sept. 22, 2009)

Album about American cities and states charted for 50 weeks.Chart-topper “Hit the Road Jack” leads off the bonus tracks.

LOS
ANGELES, Calif. — When Ray Charles left Atlantic Records for
ABC-Paramount, his first move was to gather up a dozen vintage songs
about U.S. destinations. The resulting album, The Genius Hits the Road,
in turn gave Charles his first No. 1 hit, a soulful reading of Hoagy
Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind.” The album, which also contains such
travel songs as “Alabamy Bound, ” “California, Here I Come, ” “Deep in
the Heart of Texas” and “Blue Hawaii, ” marked the start of Charles’
long association with producer Sid Feller and featured band longtime
accompanists saxmen David ”Fathead” Newman and Hank Crawford, plus the
Raeletts.

A deluxe reissue of The Genius Hits the Road,
augmented by six bonus tracks, digital re-mastering and new liner notes
by Bill Dahl alongside original notes by Rick Ward, will be released
September 22, 2009, on the eve of what would have been the late icon’s
79th birthday.

“This was the first album we made together, ”
said late producer Feller. “(Ray) wanted to do songs either about
states or cities. A lot of the material he knew himself. He’d give me
some titles and then check through catalogs and publishers for other
ones that had names of cities or states.”

The Genius Hits the
Road was recorded in two lengthy New York recording sessions in March
1960. “Georgia On My Mind” was first on the evening’s agenda. The
song’s lyricist Stuart Gorrell actually found his inspiration in
Carmichael’s sister Georgia rather than the state, but the words pay
tribute to either. It was Charles’ first No. 1 hit, earning him two of
four Grammys that year. The album also contained a version of Leo Robin
and Ralph Rainger’s “Blue Hawaii, ” recorded originally for the 1937
movie Waikiki Wedding starring Bing Crosby. A year after Charles
recorded it, the song became the title track to a 1961 Elvis Presley
film.

The 12 songs of The Genius Hits the Road were by no means
the only travel tunes Charles recorded in his ABC-Paramount tenure. The
expanded edition reissue adds six more. The best known of these is
Charles’ No. 1 version of Percy Mayfield’s “Hit the Road Jack, ” which
joins Les Brown’s “Sentimental Journey, ” Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of
Kentucky, ” Tony Joe White’s “Rainy Night in Georgia, ” Paul
McCartney’s “Long and Winding Road, ” John Denver’s “Take Me Home,
Country Roads” and Charles’ own “I Was on Georgia Time.”